


Blue Blood Pumping Through Our Veins

by FreckledScience



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: A collection of oneshots, Androids processing food, Coffee, Coffee Shops, Familial Relationships, Fluff, Mentions of dealing with trauma, Minor OC - Freeform, Oneshot, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 20:55:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15566238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreckledScience/pseuds/FreckledScience
Summary: Two one-shots for the price of one.Between Connor trying to find his true calling and Kara figuring out life in Canada there are conversations to be had, coffee flavours to be tried and new feelings to be explored.





	1. Expression

Connor sat at a desk and stared into the nothingness.  
A pencil thrummed rhythmically against his lips and he thought hard on what to write.  
An actual piece of paper was in front of him and he felt like in medieval times when writing on dead trees was common practice and electronics only present in the form of lightning bolts.  
Hank had given him that paper and the pencil earlier, when Connor had asked for writing utensils. He had murmured something about being able to think better like that and shoved it into his hands with a kind of gentle force that should not be able to exist due to contradictions, but Hank pulled it off well.  
Markus had told him that it didn’t matter what kinds of materials he used, so he didn’t complain and just sat down at the desk that was now so familiar.  
Forming words in itself was easy, child’s play, really. But forming words that expressed what he felt was something else entirely.  
Markus had told him that painting for him was just letting go, focusing on emotions and doing whatever felt right. Expressing himself.  
Connor had tried that as well but his lines on the paper didn’t say anything. Not like Markus’ paintings did. While every brushstroke in his paintings was deliberate and so very eloquent, Connor’s lines were flat, without a story to tell. They just were.  
Markus had looked at them and at Connor’s eyes which were desperately searching for what he had done wrong and he had pat his back encouragingly and told him that painting was not the only art, not the only way somebody could express themselves. 

He had shown him the piano, had let him try music. And while Connor thoroughly enjoyed the sounds one could produce and felt the music to some extent he didn’t think this was his calling either.  
“Have you ever tried writing before?”  
An incredulous look by Connor followed.  
“When would I have tried that, Markus?”  
The other android nodded with an appraising look.  
“You have a point.”

And there he was now, thinking about what he wanted to say, what he wanted to convey.  
He thought about what had happened in Detroit. He thought about what had been important back then, what was important in his life right now.  
He thought of orders, approval and the law. Of Hank and Sumo and Jericho. Of expression and freedom and friendships. He thought of emotions he now felt - truly felt - and was slowly learning to name and put into categories. He thought of sounds and tastes and smells.  
And suddenly it seemed clear what he wanted to write but how seemed to be far out of his reach. Like the stars or past decisions.  
So he consulted the internet. 

He cross-referenced different writers, poets and writing styles.  
He learned about different ways to rhyme and how to make sure the melody of sentences would flow together well. He learned, that not all poems rhymed, that freeform was almost as common as rhymed poetry by now. 

And then he sat back, thought about the information he had collected and tapped the pencil against his lips again. 

 

“A hand”, he wrote, “reaching out to somebody who has already fallen down a cliff is not a hand stretched out in vain.”  
He thought of himself and Hank and he was not quite sure which of them was the hand and which of them the fallen one.  
“A song being sung a million times will not lose its worth by being sung yet again.”  
Connor wiped the graphite of the pencil a bit as the words flowed more freely now.  
“A breeze destroying one man’s field might bring relief to another.”  
He honestly didn’t know where he was going with this. He had no plan, which felt somehow like and unlike him at the same time.  
“And this breeze might just carry a song. A song sung a million and one times. Flowing over a cliff, reaching a fallen man. A man, almost drowned in blue. A man opening his eyes in hope.”  
Did he need to have a point to express his thoughts? He didn’t know. Markus never told him. But maybe that was the beauty of it all: Discovering what this meant for himself and how to reach it. Making decisions of his own free will independent of any programming that might have held him back.  
“And that man might see a reaching hand. He might reach back. Might start to fight again. Might make his way to the shore to enjoy the breeze and sing a gentle song, sung a million and two times.”  
Connor stared at what he had written and somehow it reverberated deep within him. Somehow he found himself agreeing and a part of him thought that to be obvious since he had written it but another part of him was astonished. Astonished that he could put thoughts into words on paper - readable words - and that the meaning wasn’t lost at all. Not for him at least.  
He scrunched up his eyebrows, looking at the slightly crumpled paper in his hands and smiled. 

The complexity of emotions one can feel still baffled him. So often, in fact, that Hank sometimes teased him about it.  
Connor promised himself to show this piece of writing - poem? - to Markus the next time they met. 

Before that could happen, Hank had found it, though. Hank had found it and read it. The perfectly even letters in soft graphite giving away the author almost as prominently and glaringly as the contents.  
Connor had been in the kitchen at that time, playing with Sumo and smiling softly at the unadulterated joy he expressed when he received this kind of attention.  
Hank had entered the kitchen, paper in hand.  
“What the fuck, son?”, a gruff voice had said, only slightly more inconsistent than usual, which Connor had picked up on regardless.  
He had raised his head in question, a soft “huh?” on his lips already.  
A slight glow was in the eyes of the lieutenant, who had quickly become a father figure for him. At first Connor thought it to be anger, maybe disappointment at the subject or execution of his writing. Possibly because he considered this a waste of paper. Then he looked closer and saw that the sheen was caused by liquid. “Tears”, his mind provided and he was baffled.  
“ Are you alright, lieu- Hank?” He still had to correct himself sometimes when addressing his friend. Old habits died hard, after all.  
“Of course I am, kid, why wouldn’t I be? Now come, hug this old man and then skedaddle before I make you watch that old 20s trivia show again.”  
Connor obliged only too gladly. He took his piece of paper before going to meet some of the people he had met in Jericho.  
A look at the paper revealed a yellow sticky note with letters in uneven scrawl:  
“Good job, kid. - Hank”


	2. A shot of maple syrup

If somebody had asked her for ways to start a friendship a dropped coffee mug wouldn’t have been one of the top answers Kara would have given.  
Incidentally it was how she had met Maebelle.  
They both worked in the same coffee shop and on her first day Kara had dropped a cup. She had been jittery. Maybe because of the continued nerves; the need to check for people following them. Sometimes she still found herself reaching for Alice’s hand to reassure her when she was, in fact, at school.  
Of course they would run into a few problems once the humans noticed that Alice didn’t really age but they’d cross that bridge once they’d come to it.

Whatever the reason, a cup of coffee was now on the floor instead of on the counter where a customer shot her a sympathetic look and a hesitant thumbs up. Kara felt embarrassment in that moment and immediately thought that she didn’t like that emotion.  
Steps came closer to her until black shoes with tiny ribbons stopped right in front of her. She anticipated a scolding but instead the person knelt down and helped her to mop up the spilled coffee.  
“Are you alright?”, the girl in front of her asked and tilted her head slightly.  
Big brown eyes in a freckled face looked at her with concern and Kara nodded jerkily.  
“Yeah. It’s fine. I guess I’m getting sleepy.”  
The girl nodded in understanding and smiled brightly at her.  
“Don’t worry, it happens to the best of us. I’m sure you can take a free coffee if that helps you. The owner doesn’t mind as long as you don’t overdo it.” Another grin took over the girl’s face. ”I’m Maebelle, by the way. Maebelle O’Reighley.”  
“Kara Lewis”, she hesitated before stretching out her hand, “it’s a pleasure to meet you.”  
She needn’t have worried, for Maebelle took her hand and shook it without even giving it an odd look. Evidently Kara had behaved completely normal in this situation. Good.

She remembered picking out the last name for their family with Alice and Luther in the home of Rose’s brother in the first few days after their arrival when it was time to apply for jobs and get Alice signed up for school.  
Humans, as they’d been reminded by Cole, usually had last names. Not having one would immediately give them away or at least cause some odd looks.  
So they had pulled up a list of common American surnames on the internet, and scrolled through them, trying the sound on their tongues while sitting on Alice’s bed one evening. 

“Alice Davis, Kara Davis, Luther Davis”, Luther tried. Alice shook her head.  
“Let’s try something different.”  
Luther shrugged and continued scrolling.  
“Alice Robinson?”, he tried and gained a ‘so-so’ gesture from both Alice and Kara.  
It continued like that for quite a while.  
Then Alice heard a last name that she liked.  
The moment Luther had said “Alice Lewis” a light had sprung into the eyes of their daughter and she had practically bubbled with excitement.  
It didn’t last for long, though, as she immediately reigned herself in, trying to be quiet and unnoticed once more. It broke Alice’s heart to see the behaviour that was necessary to survive only days before. She wanted her daughter to be happy. She wanted her to smile and laugh and scream in joy as other children did. But she knew that the road to recovery was a long and rocky one and that they’d all have to work to get rid of their habits.  
But for now there was one thing she could do.  
She ruffled Alice’s head and said: “Lewis it is, then. A bit like Lewis Carroll, huh?”  
Kara couldn’t help the soft smile that emerged when Alice nodded shyly and told her about the time “before” and how Kara had always read “Alice in Wonderland” to her.  
Luther pulled them both into a hug and they quietly shared this moment as a family, for the first time in what felt like forever in true peace.

 

And now here she was, having come so far after the happenings in Detroit. She owned a small flat, worked in a coffee shop, sent her daughter to school and Luther was working in a flower shop that was only a block away from Alice’s school.  
They had mopped up the mess and Maebelle made another cup of coffee for the customer while Kara washed her hands and got lost in memories. It was a quiet day so they had time to talk afterwards.  
Not before her coworker made her a coffee though. Kara couldn’t imagine that this substance would do anything to help her jittery fingers, but she didn’t want to be rude either. The girl had told her that many people liked a shot of maple syrup in their coffee lately, maybe because it sweetened the bitter substance significantly, maybe because it was Canada, she had joked. So of course Kara had gotten that.  
She found that she liked the maple syrup in there. The coffee would have been too bitter for her otherwise for sure, but somehow the maple syrup made the taste… enjoyable.

Maebelle then told her how she was currently going to university to become a medical doctor and how she had taken this job because the surrounding libraries hadn’t offered any jobs when she had been searching, how she didn’t even like coffee and how she lived with her boyfriend who studied chemistry at the same university.  
Kara in turn told her that she had only recently moved to Canada from the USA with her family, that this was not her ideal job either and that she’d like to work with kids one day.  
Maebelle nodded wisely.  
“You can do it!” An encouraging hand motion followed. Then the blonde girl drew her eyebrows together and tilted her head in thought. “I’m pretty sure that my university offers a major in that sort of department, now that I think about it. Childhood development or something was on the list if I remember correctly. Did you think more small kids, like pre-school, or teenagers?”  
Kara felt shaken. She wasn’t sure if anybody had ever told her that she could do it. Especially not that nonchalantly, that matter-of-factly without a doubt.  
Her mouth suddenly felt dry and for a moment she thought about running a diagnosis but ceased in the motion when she remembered that Maebelle was in front of her and she was supposed to keep up the illusion of an entirely normal human being.  
She licked her lips instead and smiled an awkward smile.  
“I was thinking small children, yeah.”  
Maebelle nodded and smiled.  
“They are adorable. I can understand why you’d want to work with them. I hope you can afford to follow your dreams soon.”  
The thought of Alice crossed Kara’s mind and she couldn’t help but agree. Children were adorable. A stab of guilt shot through her when she remembered another small child she had met. A tiny baby held by his mother who would now have to wait in the States while her family was safe and warm and happy in Canada.  
She shoved the thought to the back of her mind and decided that she didn’t like that feeling either.

A group of teenagers entered the coffee shop, looking at the menu and giving her their decisions.  
And Kara sipped on her hot beverage, worked on their orders and thought: Maybe her experiences until now were a bit like that coffee: Pretty bitter on some ends. But people like Alice, Luther, Jerry, Rose, her brother Cole and now Maebelle were a shot of maple syrup in her life. They were ridiculously sweet and made the entire thing enjoyable. She smiled.


End file.
